Motivation

Of all the things that coaching clients are concerned about,
motivation has to take the top prize. There are things we want to do,
and we know we should do them, but we just can't bring ourselves to do
them. Why? Are we just weak-willed? (No: See the section on
discipline for more on the topic of willpower.)

Lack of motivation is inherently a battle between multiple parts of
ourselves. The Kensho Method models human behavior as though we were
each not just a single person but a whole constellation of
personalities. Any decision you take is more properly thought of as
the result of a vote in committee. It's when the vote is not unanimous
that the problems arise.

Say you want to lose weight. You know what needs to be done: Eat
less, exercise more. (All the "tricks" amount to a fraction of a
percent of contributing towards the end result versus the simple
truism of eating less and exercising more. The tricks only help once
you face up to that reality.) But eating less and exercising more
does not happen. It is unappealing. Why, when you want to do that,
does it not happen? It is not physically impossible or even
challenging. The difficulty is purely emotional.

The conflict is between the part of you that wants the change and a
part of you that has not gotten on board with the program yet. That
other part of you is more interested in lying on the sofa watching
cartoons and eating chocolate cake. Many people make this part into
the enemy. They call its influence "resistance" and of course, the
only thing to do with resistance is to overcome it through superior
force.

The problem with this approach is first of all, that you may not have
superior force. The other part may be stronger. And secondly, even
if the force is sufficient to overcome that part--who are you
fighting? Yourself. All this energy is being expended in battling
against yourself. It may seem like this is the only possibility--and
indeed, many people live their lives never realizing that there is an
alternative. For them, life is struggle. Their only hope for results
lies in the part of them that wants a long-term outcome being stronger
than the part that wants instant gratification.

This is exhausting. And it is a life lived in conflict with oneself.

The Kensho Method is that achieving your goals is best done with the
energy of all of your inner aspects working together. If a part of
you does not want to move toward some goal, then we explore what it
wants and how it has not been heard. It is amazing how once that part
is acknowledged, that it can get behind your goal, and then suddenly,
the part of you that would have kept you on the coach eating donuts is
working towards your weight loss goal because it now knows that it is
not being ignored.

When all your inner aspects are working in concert to achieve a goal,
the amount of energy available to you is amazing. In Kensho Coaching
we focus on that outcome.